1. Field of the Invention
This invention is suitable for use in substitution for the conventional television signal-generating system embodying a cathode ray camera tube and accessories. It is well known that such systems, while yielding entirely satifactory performance, are extremely complex, bulky, and costly. The video-signal-generating system of the present invention replaces the conventional cathode-ray camera tube with a semiconductor charge-coupled device of the area-image-sensing type and is lightweight, compact, and relatively inexpensive and particularly suitable for use as a portable system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It has heretofore been proposed to use a charge-coupled device as an area-image sensor to develop a serial video signal for reproducing the sensed image on a receiving cathode-ray tube. One image-sensing system useful in such field is described and claimed in the copending application of Lloyd R. Walsh, Ser. No. 391,119, filed Aug. 27, 1973, entitled "Charge-Coupled Area Array", now abandoned, and assigned to the same assignee as the present invention. However, for certain applications, the resolution of the image reproduced from a signal generated by such a system is somewhat lower than desired.
Therefore, an object of the invention is to provide a new and improved charge-coupled device video-signal-generating system which generates a signal yielding a reproduced image made up of a larger number of picture elements and/or a larger number of scanning lines, yielding higher resolution than possible with prior art systems of this type without increasing the input image format size and without increasing the device readout clock rate.
It is a further object of the invention to minimize or eliminate aliasing, that is, spurious or false image-signal generation which can occur with single area-image-sensing arrays having nonphotosensitive patterned regions within the image formate region.